The first ten minutes of the game actually turned out to be Dortmund’s best period. They had four decent opportunities, with Schalke struggling to get the ball out of their own half. It seemed only a matter of time before the home side went ahead.

Dortmund start brilliantly

Schalke’s midfield was terribly disorganised in the first half. Their formation looked like a cross between a 4-4-2 and a 4-2-2-2, and it wasn’t immediately clear what the defensive roles of their wide players were supposed to be. Jefferson Farfan and Jose Manuel Jurado played very high up the pitch and left a lot of space between the lines that Dortmund constantly exploited. In particular, Jurado drifted inside and didn’t track back, which meant that Jakub Blaszczykowski and Lukasz Piszczek doubled up to overwhelm Schmitz down Schalke’s right.

Both Dortmund full-backs got forward in the opening stages, allowing the wide players inside. Dortmund’s movement was excellent – both from the attackers and from deeper on the pitch – the two holding midfielders took it in turns to venture forward, and even Mats Hummels brought the ball out of the back to provide some level of attacking threat.

Discipline

Dortmund were also superior defensively. Blaszczykowski and Kevin Grosskreutz got back to form two banks of four, and with Farfan and Jurado coming inside, Dortmund themselves ended up with a narrow midfield in the defensive phase. They broke up attacks well, but narrowness meant that their usual counter-attacking style was compromised – transitions from defence to attack were more difficult, as there was no natural width to stretch the play and exploit space.

In fact, Schalke were more often opened up in the centre of the pitch after Dortmund had built up play gradually. Kluge got sucked into battles high up the pitch and Anthony Annan became exposed in front of the back four. That back four looked out of shape and on a couple of occasions the full-backs were deeper than the centre-backs, with Barrios making dangerous runs in behind.

Schalke also gave the ball away too readily. Neuer – whilst being clear man of the match for a succession of superb saves – attempted ambitious long throws and gave the ball back to Dortmund immediately. Raul and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar put the work in to close down from the front, but often did so 40 metres ahead of the rest of the side, and Dortmund played around them easily.

Second half

For the second half, Schalke’s midfield was far better without the ball – much deeper, in more of a clear ‘four’ across the pitch. They broke up Dortmund’s attacks quicker and tracked their full-backs well, and suddenly Dortmund didn’t look so comfortable in possession. They still created chances, but Barrios wasted a couple of promising opportunities, and a couple of times made the wrong run to meet balls from the midfielders.

Midway through the second half Schalke came into the game, creating a couple of chances themselves. Despite this, Magath made little attempt to go for the win and made defensive-minded substitutions. Kyriakos Papadopoulos (more of a centre-back than a holding midfielder) came on for Annan, whilst Hao Junmin came on for Jurado to sit solidly ahead of Schmitz. Schalke’s new golden boy Julian Draxler got just three minutes of action.

Robert Lewandowski replaced Grosskreutz to inject some new drive into Dortmund’s attack, but tactically things changed little throughout the game. The best chance fell to Mario Gotze who made darting runs past Barrios throughout, but he swivelled and turned a shot onto the post having rounded Neuer.

Conclusion

Dortmund failed to make their early dominance count because of both poor shooting and brilliant goalkeeping. They exploited the flimsiness of Schalke’s midfield by getting their three attackers between the lines and by getting their full-backs into attacking positions, but simply couldn’t put the finishing touches on moves.

Schalke were dreadful early on, but Magath adjusted well at half time to shut up shop, and the game was much more even in the second period.

I often noticed when Dortmund had the ball at the back that Huntelaar would force Santana to play the ball forward. He cut off Santana’s angle to Hummels, who is a great ball playing centre back, and made the shaky in possession Brazilian initiate the attacks.

Anyone else notice this or was I seeing things?

Cris on February 4, 2011 at 10:40 pm

Good summation of the match! One note, Bender is the player who usually plays deepest in midfield.

Often Sahin is deeper than Bender, especially when Dortmund have possession as he is the one who launches the attacks when Borussia have the ball. When defending Bender is usually the one in behind cleaning up. I think it’s a pretty petty point to dwell on in the end.

Cris on February 7, 2011 at 6:18 am

Yes, they interchange, as both are very capable and rounded central midfielders. In Klopp’s particular set up however Bender is on average the deeper player.

I think it was very interesting to see how effective perfectly timed rushes from the goalkeeper was at neutering Dortmunds throughballs to players making runs. I don’t know how many Bundesliga keepers can realistically expect to replicate Neuers performance, but I think it’s a pretty good recipe for neutralizing Dortmunds constant throughballs, which is really where 90%+ of their offence comes from.

Fonz on February 5, 2011 at 10:47 am

Arsenal should go for Neuer

RA on February 5, 2011 at 12:48 pm

I thought he was going to Bayern at the end of the season?

hwk on February 5, 2011 at 1:21 pm

van Gaal is not willed to spend much money for a goalie if Kraft is doing well for the rest of the season.
Of course Neuer is the best German goal keeper today, and he will leave Schalke at some point. But the talks about him already being a Bavarian are cooling down. Van Gaal maybe wants to use the money for other signings if Kraft is doing well. Neuer may leaves to England (so far, Rene Adler were the German goalie on the United goalie list, but now that might change?).

Anonymous on February 7, 2011 at 4:05 pm

van Gaal is constantly trying to act like a manager (the german meaning of manager, I don’t know the english one) but currently seems to fail more often.
The display of Kraft in Cologne was decent at best, thus everybody could see Munichs need for a top keeper.

anthony on February 5, 2011 at 11:36 am

They call Jurgen Klopp the german Arsene Wenger because of his trust in youth but do have the same footballing philosophy. I ask because I on watching a few of Dortmund’s games the emphasis seems to be more on pressing and as you said “counterattacking” more dynamic then arsenal’s football. Also what is the actual different between concept and total football?

hwk on February 5, 2011 at 1:28 pm

total fooball is about domination, passing the ball, pressing, and about players switching positions. fluid movement, the striker moves to midfield, the winger and the full back (are able to) change position, etc.etc.

concept football is about sending your team out with a plan. a plan based on your strength and the opponents shortcomings. it is not about a special style, more about the right tactics for the job. maybe concept football is the pragmatic version of total fottball, coz not every team has players like Cruijff ….

correct me if I’m wrong.

Aaron on February 6, 2011 at 12:07 am

I do not know Arsenals playing style nowdays, but Klopps idea is, as he stated once, a defensive one, even though it doesn’t look like it, and even though a lot of german sport journalists will not agree. Each of his players has press the enemy when the BVB is not in ball-possession. That makes the enemy lose the ball and then Dortmund switch to a very direct and fast attack. This style is somehow similiar to Mainz, were Klopp was trainer before he went to Dortmund.

The whole idea reminds me a little bit of the way Barca plays, even though Dortmund is not that good in technique, passing, coolness and most important scoring rate, but it is also a lot more direct. Barca sometimes looks like they are playing with the enemy like a cat plays with a mouse (that is no critique – more a description of the way i see their play.).

Varun on February 5, 2011 at 1:56 pm

Neuer kept Schalke in the match but It was Dormund who lost it themselves, they had such easy opportunities.
Hits on Goal posts, once on open goal. Schalke were lucky very very lucky.
One off game for Dortmund i would say.

Aaron on February 5, 2011 at 11:54 pm

You might be right, many chances were mist, because the attacking players were not positioned right. There were quite some situations were a player stood just too narrow to the goal, so the pass just went onto the bag of the player.
If i observed right, they did this many times during this season, so it might be one of Dortmunds weaknesses. Correct me, if i am wrong.

Reospo on February 7, 2011 at 7:58 am

That is right, Dortmund create a tremendous amount of chances (180 before this game), but only about 1/4 are turned into goals raking Dortmund 9th or 10th in that ranking. Neuers runs towards the ball were edfinetly were helpful for Schalkes point, but i have also seen an number of chances, were the ball was shot directly at him, especially Kuba did that several times.

Martin on February 7, 2011 at 10:44 am

Some amazing misses there, and Dortmund clearly should have won that game, but even with the draw they still managed to end the weekend one point and one match closer to the title after Leverkusen and Bayern both lost on Saturday.